a special friendship: meeting Lisa King

At the beginning of the year one of my blog friends, Lisa King, had a tragedy happen in her family. She lost her son and her husband within months of each other. As a mother, wife and blogger my heart ached for her and I felt the need to help out, to do something, to do anything to lighten her burden and the heartache she was feeling.

So I wrote a blog post and set up a fundraising page to see if I could raise some funds to pay for the two headstones for the grave of her son and husband. I felt that with the amount of readers on my blog I could surely raise enough money to cover the cost of that expense and maybe a little more to pay for groceries over the first month of dealing with her loss.

To my absolute shock we had a fundraising miracle and managed to raise $44,700. It was a beautiful heartbreak for Lisa and for me. Not only did we raise enough money for two gorgeous headstones for her sweet cherub and husband but we were able to help Lisa pay off her house! Incredible!

So you can imagine my delight this month when I was able to meet Lisa in person for the first time. Lisa came over to my home and it was a special meeting. It was so lovely to hug her and to talk about our families and life in general. I felt so thankful that I could meet such an inspiring lady and be involved in helping her in such a small way.

We filled my dining table with cherubs and had lunch together. We watched our children interacting together and had a great time talking. We briefly caught up on each other's lives and I was delighted to also meet Lisa's brother and mother. It was such a joyous moment to have them all in our home and to see them happy. We of course had to get together for some pictures of this special meeting and my cherubs had to get a little crazy in the pictures. Typical!  

We then headed off to church together and sadly said our goodbyes until the next time that we can meet. I am constantly in awe of the strength of Lisa and her determination to keep her life running and functioning for her three boys despite the sorrow and challenges she faces. I feel so blessed to know her and hope that I can have the faith and courage that she has one day. Once again I am so thankful to everyone who donated to help Lisa and her family. I still get teary whenever I think about it. I also highly recommend you check out her blog. It is an inspiring read.